Usporedba vremena uključenja glasa u govoru teško nagluhih, gluhih i čujućih ispitanika
The Comparison of Voice-Onset-Time in the Speech of Hard-Of-Hearing, Deaf and Hearing Subjects

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this research was to acoustically examine and compare differences in average voice-onset-time (VOT) between voiceless and voiced pairs of stop consonants in the speech of hard-of-hearing, deaf and hearing subjects. The subjects read a list of 30 monosyllabic and bisyllabic words, five of which contained each of 6 Croatian plosives in initial position, followed by vowel. The obtained VOT measures addressed the period between the release of the closure and the first period of the following vowel, therefore being strictly positive. Compared to hearing subjects, hearing impaired subjects demonstrated longer VOT for voiced and shorter VOT for voiceless plosives, which was more prominent for more severe category of the impairment. Such pronunciation affected the time separation of voiceless and voiced pairs of stops in the manner that the difference in VOT between pairs diminished in the group of hard-of-hearing subjects, and became minimal or even negative in the group of deaf subjects. In other words, hard-of-hearing subjects in average did manage to distinguish voiceless and voiced stops, while deaf subject did not, because they demonstrated extremely small or even negative differences in average VOT between voiceless and voiced pairs voiceless and voiced pairs stops. The differences in average VOT between voiceless and voiced pairs voiceless and voiced pairs stops were significant between hearing and hearing impaired subjects, as well as between hard-of-hearing and deaf subjects, and also significantly connected to the degree of hearing loss.

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